Texas' embattled cancer agency, complying with a request by the state's top elected officials, said Wednesday it would stop awarding grants until it can assure the public it is conducting its business properly.

The chairman and vice chairman of the governing board of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas endorsed an appeal by Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Joe Straus for a moratorium on grants until concerns about the agency are addressed. Collectively, the three officials appoint the majority of the agency's board.

"These issues need to be resolved to restore public confidence in CPRIT," Jimmy Mansour, chairman, and Dr. Joseph Bailes, vice chairman, said in a statement.

The controversy principally stems from two commercialization grants awarded by the agency, one to an "incubator" led by the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and the second to a Dallas-based company, Peloton Therapeutics. The two grants, which together involved more than $30 million in taxpayer money, didn't undergo the peer review considered essential to agency awards. Both have been halted.

Further scrutiny has followed reports by the Houston Chronicle and other news organizations about the activities of a foundation established to supplement the salaries of top cancer agency officials.

The letter from Perry, Dewhurst and Straus said it is vital that CPRIT cooperate fully with current reviews, implement recommended changes, enact governance reforms and fill key vacant positions to ensure "all future grant requests are properly reviewed and acted upon - prior to future grants being awarded."

Timely manner

The reviews are being conducted by state auditors, local prosecutors and the Texas attorney general.

"We expect these milestones to be given high priority and met in a timely manner," the officials wrote in a letter dated Tuesday but released Wednesday. "The mission of defeating cancer is too important to be derailed by inadequate processes and a lack of oversight."

Earlier Wednesday, state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, called for more transparency and oversight of the $3 billion cancer agency.

"There are far too many troubling questions with our state's cancer institute that need immediate legislative attention," Davis wrote in a letter to Perry. She noted that the agency was "plagued by accusations of cronyism, conflicts of interest, insider deals, and a lack of transparency and accountability to the public."

An out-of-state ethicist called the freeze on grants appropriate.

"They need to regroup, rethink procedures and safeguards, and re-emerge with a more tightly regulated set of procedures," said Paul Wolpe, director of the Center for Ethics at Emory University in Atlanta. "If they do that, I think the public confidence can be restored pretty quickly."

But Wolpe added that he's "sorry it took (CPRIT) this long to see it. They could have avoided a lot of damage if they had responded quickly and decisively to the initial complaints."

Private donors

Davis, vice chair of the Senate Committee on Open Government, questioned whether private donors, whose names the foundation keeps secret, should continue to supplement the salaries of the agency's employees.

Davis also urged Perry to evaluate whether commercialization grants, intended to bring new cancer drugs to market, are consistent with the Legislature's intent that CPRIT funds be used to "create and expedite innovation in the area of cancer research" and to "promote a substantial increase in cancer research."

The cancer agency has awarded about $100 million in commercialization grants, and officials have said it intends to increase the share of funds it allocates for such work.

Davis also asked Texas Comptroller Susan Combs to make her office's two previous audits of CPRIT "readily accessible online so that the public may easily locate and examine them." The office subsequently posted the audits at http://www.window.state.tx.us/finances/pubs/CPRIT/.

Sen. Jane Nelson, chair of the Senate Committee on Health & Human Services, said she had pre-filed legislation to strengthen ethics at the cancer agency. Among its provisions, the bill requires CPRIT to strengthen protections against conflict of interests for employees, governing board members and peer reviewers.

On Thursday the House Appropriations subcommittee will meet to discuss the beleaguered cancer agency.